IT IS SAID that the Who played a rock and roll music concert here on Sunday and Monday nights at the Civic Auditorium. That is an understatement.

True, they did that — they did play and sing with great panache and ferocity for more than two hours — from their earliest rockers like “Substitute” and “I Can’t Explain” (both re-issued on the new “Meaty Beaty Big and Bouncy” album) to their latest Moogers (using taped Synthesizer) of “Baba O’Riley” and “Won’t Get Fooled Again” from the “Who’s Next” album. And in between, of course, they did “Magic Bus” and “My Generation” and nearly half an hour of uninterrupted “Tommy,” ending with the deeply touching “We’re Not Gonna Take It!”

But that wasn’t the story of the concert, not really. Not any more than the story of Lindbergh’s crossing of the Atlantic in 1927 was one of mileage. The story on Sunday night, and probably Monday night, was the stuff with which time capsules are filled; or should be. Hysteria, violence, theater and drama, primal impulses, sadism, self-flagellation and blood lust were all present in an evening that ultimately emerged as more rite than concert, more ritual than music. But we are getting ahead of ourselves, for the event begs to be treated as it evolved — chronologically.

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ONE MYLON LEFEVRE and his coterie of bewhiskered rascals opened the show with as bald a display of earnestness and yelling as one is likely to find at any given revival meeting. Bewhiskered, that is, save for three black lovelies who functioned as gospel choir to Mylon’s singing preacher.

Mylon is a hard-worker, a vigorous singer, a snappy dresser and surrounded by players of competence. But the band is basically a bunch of screamers and I am not quite sure that I see the point of a bunch of screamers preceding the Who. Like who needs Led Zeppelin preceding the Rolling Stones? At any rate, Mylon is a fine young man and a credit to his race. I particularly admired the manner in which he feigned sexual intercourse with an electric guitar. That, by itself, is not unique. But, in this case, it was somebody else’s guitar.

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THE WHO entered under an enormous British flag, surrounded by banks of colored spotlights (later used very effectively) and the monster Hi-Watt amplifiers, kicked out the jams of their second long tour this year (drummer Keith Moon: severe stomach pains; leader Peter Townshend: water on the knee, wearing basketball pads; lead singer Roger Daltrey: pooped; bassist Keith Entwistle: the unflappable deadpan which has become cliché in contrast to his thrashing compatriots) and proceeded to put the audience immediately into a state of shock… at least those of us close enough for the thundering over-volume to do its work. The music, you see, was so loud that it challenges descriptions. It wasn’t heard in the ear… it was jammed into the body like sausage into casing.

But it wasn’t the volume that was interesting, for any fool trio with $50,000 for equipment could equal it. What struck me was rather that we took it, this enormous pounding, for two solid hours. And liked it. Not enjoyed it so much as absorbed it as concomitant punishment for being permitted to witness the leaping, twisting, devastating excitement created by the Who and, particularly, guitarist Townshend.

Townshend is among the most articulate men in rock. He is intelligent, perceptive and most amusing. Yet it seems clear that he becomes a man possessed on stage, not zooming around or breaking guitars because it’s good show biz but because he has to do so. And the audience becomes part of the spectacle; a crowd at the Indianapolis 500 awaiting death, or a bullfight gathering with Townshend as the bull and reality the sword.

I watched him tear across the stage, bounding and crashing, knocking microphones 20 feet and I could feel the crowd sensing a disaster that never came. Only that incredible music, rock and roll for 2001. Townshend probably knew it all the time. The last laugh is his.